Christina Ricci arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute gala benefit, May 7, 2012 in New York.

In a city that hosts thousands of fashion shows each year, there’s no bigger — or perhaps more treacherous — runway than the red carpeted staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The museum’s annual Costume Institute gala draws the top tier of the fashion design world as well as a full assortment of A-list celebrities. And they all climb the stairs, sometimes with difficulty, given the confinement or complexity of their outfits. For the first time, the arrivals were live-streamed Monday in a collaboration between the museum, Amazon and Vogue magazine, so viewers got to see what guests were wearing and hear from the designers who created the looks. I tuned in along with thousands of others.